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The Season Mode was heavily modified in this game. Along with removing the pre-season mode from the original, Know Your Role gave more storylines and more matches per show. These changes were given a mixed reaction by fans and critics alike. There are a number of flaws in the Season Mode, such as the long loading times needed for even the most insignificant scenes (like a wrestler walking down a corridor). Wrestlers, wrestling moves, and arenas are unlocked as the player progresses through a season. The Season Mode has multiplayer support, with up to four players playing at once in a Season. Wrestlers such as Shawn Michaels, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Billy Gunn, Mick Foley (Including Cactus Jack) and Debra Marshall are unlockable superstars. This was also the first SmackDown game to feature wrestlers such as Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit.

Throughout the series, this is Michael Cole's first appearance as an unlockable superstar, which would appear in his second game which is WWF No Mercy and would not appear again in the series until WWE '12 as his last appearance as a DLC superstar.

Big Show and Ken Shamrock were removed from the game before release; Big Show had been removed from the promotion's programming and sent to Ohio Valley Wrestling while Shamrock left WWF to return to mixed martial arts competition, but both may randomly appear during a Royal Rumble match (of which the player can take control of) and can be used in other modes using cheat devices, although their names were removed.

WWF Smackdown! 2: Know Your Role was the first game in the Smackdown series which introduced advanced Create-A-Superstar, allowing the player to create a character in greater detail as opposed to just choosing preset mix-and-match templates like the previous game. A unique feature 'Create-A-Manager' was included which allows the player to assign managers such as Paul Bearer and Tori to different superstars. In addition, more features were added such as Create-A-Moveset, Create-A-Taunt, and Create-A-Stable which allowed up to 4 members.